Indian Architectural Theory: Contemporary Uses of Vastu Vidya

In this ground-breaking study, Vastu Vidya, the traditional Indian science of architecture and house-building, is explored in terms of its secular uses, at the levels of both theory and contemporary practice. Vastu Vidya is treated as constituting a coherent and complete architectural programme, still of great relevance today. Chakrabarti draws on an impressive amount of textual material, much of it only available in Sanskrit, and presents several extremely valuable illustrations in support of the theories expounded. Each chapter deals with one architectural aspect, and the chapters are divided into distinct sections. For each aspect, the first section explains the prescriptions of the traditional texts. Later sections deal with the rather arbitrary use of that aspect by contemporary Indian architects trained in the western manner but striving to relate to Indian roots, and the selected use of that particular aspect by contemporary Vastu pundits, with their disregard for architectural idiom. With a foreword by G.H.R. Tillotson and 84 illustrations interspersed with the text, this is a scholarly yet approachable book on a very contemporary theme.